God is like gravity?

Certain believers think a good comeback to an atheist who expresses the lack of evidence for any divinity is to ask why he believes in gravity. Gravity, the believer says, just like God, is invisible and everywhere. Most people believe in it without evidence, so why not believe in God?

There are many good answers, but I am interested in how people in this forum might respond to the argument. It has been said that when Newton introduced the notion of a gravitational force, he was accused of bringing the occult into science.

Replies to This Discussion

One test of a scientific theory is its utility in new discoveries and new explanations of things. One discovery resulting from the theory of gravity was the planet Neptune. Astronomers had observed deviations in the orbit of Uranus from its predicted positions and hypothesized these were caused by the gravitational pull of another more distant planet and that proved to be the case. The moon's gravitational pull nicely accounts for tides.

Believers point out that there is no scientific explanation of what gravity or gravitational force is, but this is not quite the case—general relativity explains it as a distortion in the fabric of the space-time continuum. Quantum theory does not have a satisfactory explanation of gravity and the graviton has not been found yet.

Believers are correct in pointing out there is no real understanding on the mechanism behind gravity. But that seems to make our point, not theirs. Putting aside the mechanics of gravity and the mechanics of answered prayer, the effects of gravity are still there while those of answered prayer are not. We don't care what effected the change; it is not relevant to the point. We are simply confirming that a change happened.

I saw one site where the blogger argued that there must be something wrong with the theory of gravity since every planet has its own gravity, by which he meant that the force of gravity varies from one planet to another—of course that is fully accounted for in the original equation of Newton.